I would like to posit an idea.

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If...

If there were a god, the whole point of creating the universe is to create another god. Or more.

This supposes two things: a god with no omnipotence and no omniscience. Though from the perspective of a human it might seem like it.

Why?

Loneliness maybe. Possibly boredom.

Religious people would say that god does everything for a reason.

So religious people, why would god make the universe? You've heard my reason.

Hmm... that is interesting, I once came up with the idea that God was imperfect, and so he created the universe to fulfill himself, and reach perfection through the unity between himself and his creation in heaven.

I wonder what you mean by "perfect". Don't tell me it means not flawed or not imperfect as those are just linguistic tricks to avoid answering.

Well, ok, let's actually outline the idea:
1) A perfect being cannot legitimately want anything
2) God, by creating something, could not be perfect
3) Man's relationship to God is the reason for creation
4) God only created one human race with a finite existence in time(the world will end)
5) Ergo the unity of man and God must satisfy God
6) Ergo, God, once imperfect, finds perfection in his unity with man

If there is a definition I would use for the idea, here's what I would use:
Perfection is a state of being where further change to or in relationship to it would act counter to morality and purpose, where imperfection is a state of being where further change would act in accordance to morality and purpose.

Now, you can argue that I do not define morality or purpose, but technically I do not have to in order to outline this idea of perfection I put forward.

Well, it does seem more likely that a diety is imperfect, since concepts such as omniscience and omnipotence are more complicated than the universe itself.

Generally, however, I think the idea of god raises more questions than it answers. It seems like a cop-out.

If I were to take the idea of a God seriously I would have to posit it was created out of a profound ignorance as to how the universe functions and what the importance of humanity and the entire Earth is in the vastness of time and space that we now know exists. This talk of perfection is an abstraction that is some sort of conceptual asymptote which has no real existence. All of the theoretical props that people use to excuse and explain the existence of such a faulty conception is reminiscent of one of those paintings of Dali where a figure requires a multitude of crude crutches to support its various soft floppy protruding bits of physiology. It is a silly joke that is no longer funny because it requires eternal re-explaining to the extent that it is a bore.

I'm guessing you dont like Dali!

As a kid, even a young man, I was religious. And I hated Dali.

Now Dali is kinda cool, but religious belief is increasingly Banal and trite.

I would guess that my participation in religious themed threads is some struggle to justify the energy spend maintaining belief all those years. Some tenuous strands are not yet broken.

You cause a question to arise in my mind. Despite the seniority of your atheism, you often still participate in threads like this one. I do not see you ranting and railing against belief, so I doubt there is some undercurrent of repressed belief. You abide, and you participate. How come?

Actually I enjoy Dali. He was disliked by the accepted formal art world because he was such an energetic self promoter but he was a very skillful artist and some of his illusions such as The Invisible Bust of Voltaire are in the same league as Magritte and Escher. I am a graphic artist and I also play with multiple embedded images so I appreciate his skill very much.

I get involved with religion because I feel is is one of the major illnesses of humanity and I am continually astounded at how easily those of faith swallow the most extraordinary nonsense and yet find it hard to accept some of the basic concepts of modern biology and physics which is solidly validated in many ways only after rigorous examination.

Thanks.

Yes, that is perplexing isnt it? It would be better if it all vanished. I think that after weighing the good against the bad, removing religion from the equation would be a net benefit.

I made this image. I bet it's something like this: